Media & Entertainment Law

Few Federal Courts Use Social Media, Survey Says

Posted on June 03, 2013
To what extent do federal courts use social media to communicate with the public or for other purposes? Not much, concluded a recent survey of federal court clerks. The survey found that out of the 135 courts that responded, just 21 (15.6%) used social media...

Does Law Ratchet Infringe Bloggers? Copyrights?

Posted on May 23, 2013
Yesterday, I wrote a post here about the debut of Law Ratchet, a site that aggregates legal news and blog posts. Afterwards, a reader emailed me asking a key question my post did not address — that of whether Law Ratchet is violating the copyrights of the publishers and bloggers whose stories it is picking up...

Law Ratchet Debuts: Like Google Reader for Legal News

Posted on May 22, 2013
With Google Reader set to shut down on July 1, many of us have been scrambling to find a substitute way to keep up with news and blogs. Yesterday, a new aggregation tool was launched, Law Ratchet, designed to enable legal professionals to keep up with the top legal and business news, analysis and commentary...

Do LinkedIn Endorsements Violate Legal Ethics?

Posted on May 20, 2013
An update from LinkedIn this morning indicated that a connection of mine had endorsed me as being skilled in litigation. The person who endorsed me is someone I know only through the Internet. We have never met or spoken, that I can recall. That means that the person has no first-hand knowledge of my skill [...

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Create a Legal Archive of Websites and Social Media

Posted on May 07, 2013
The popular notion of the Web and social media is that, once something’s out there, it will never disappear. The truth, however, is that much of what exists on the Web and social media is fleeting and constantly changing. The website or Twitter feed you view today may well be different from what it was [...

We?re Back! Our Lawyer2Lawyer Podcast Resumes

Posted on May 06, 2013
Back in November, I announced here the final episode of our legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer. After seven years of weekly shows, my cohost J. Craig Williams and I were calling it quits, due to the closing down of the company that had hosted our show, the Legal Talk Network...

Five Blogging Mistakes You Can Easily Fix

Posted on May 03, 2013
I read a lot of blogs. I am often impressed by the quality of the posts. Many lawyers consistently write thoughtful, insightful posts about their practices and interests. Even so, I often notice simple mistakes in lawyers? blogs that can detract from their ability to build readership...

With LawToolBox, Never Miss a Critical Deadline

Posted on April 30, 2013
Nothing causes lawyers more sleepless nights than fear of missed deadlines. Just one ill-timed lapse can let a statute of limitations run out or a filing deadline pass. For that reason, tools that help you calculate and calendar deadlines are invaluable...

A Quick Survey of Blogs Written by Judges

Posted on April 26, 2013
Senior U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Kopf made national news this week when he wrote on his blog, Hercules and the Umpire, about the frequent irrelevancy of the Supreme Court. “A lot of what the Supreme Court does is simply irrelevant to what federal trial judges do on a daily basis,” wrote Judge Kopf, [...

Fastcase?s ?Authority Check? Now Flags Bad Law

Posted on April 25, 2013
Legal research service Fastcase has long had a citator function, called Authority Check, that lets you see how a case has been cited. Unlike Shepard’s from LexisNexis or KeyCite from Thomson Reuters, however, it has not alerted you when a case is no longer good law...

Rocket Matter Blasts Off in a New Direction

Posted on April 02, 2013
Rocket Matter, a company known for its cloud-based law practice management platform, is blasting off into an entirely new direction. Today, it is announcing the launch of Rocket X1, an Internet-marketing service for law firms that combines a website and blogging platform with consulting services covering content creation, search engine marketing, public relations and social [...

Funds Dry Up for Innovative Court Social Media Project

Posted on March 21, 2013
An innovative experiment that turned working Massachusetts courtrooms into test labs for social media in the courts has quietly closed down operations as its operating funds have dried up. Called OpenCourt and operated by WBUR, an NPR news station in Boston, the project used digital technology to make Quincy District Court more accessible to the [...

Avvo Adds Reverse Auction ?Legal Marketplace?

Posted on February 22, 2013
The legal directory and Q&A site Avvo this week added a new feature, the Avvo Legal Marketplace, through which consumers can obtain proposals from lawyers interested in handling their case. Initially, this will be available for two practice areas, divorce and traffic tickets, with additional practice areas to be added...

Beta Site Continues to Claim it is First Network for Lawyers

Posted on December 13, 2012
Back in October, I reported the beta launch of wireLawyer.com, which described itself as “the first dedicated digital network created by lawyers for lawyers” and as having “the first crowd-sourced peer-2-peer exchange for documents.” Neither claim was true and, at that point, there was not much to the site...

In Memoriam: Jay Jaffe, 1943-2012

Posted on November 24, 2012
Jay Jaffe died this week, at the too-young age of 68. Jay was a true trailblazer and pioneer in legal marketing. Much of what the field is today follows from Jay’s lead. He was also my employer for two years, between 2002 and 2004, when I worked for his firm as vice president of editorial, [...

MyCase Acquired by AppFolio

Posted on October 26, 2012
The cloud-based practice management application MyCase announced this week that it has  been acquired by AppFolio, a company that creates software for use in residential property management. MyCase founder and CEO Matthew Spiegel announced the acquisition in an email to subscribers this week, saying that he will continue to run MyCase...

An iOS Law Dictionary for English as a Second Language

Posted on September 27, 2012
Here is an interesting iteration of the standard law dictionary — one designed specifically to help legal professionals who are not native speakers of English. Available as an app for iPhone and iPad, TransLegal’s Law Dictionary not only provides the definitions for more than 3,000 legal terms, but it also provides audible pronunciations and examples of [...

FirmFuture Conference in Boston is One Week Away

Posted on September 24, 2012
If you are anywhere near Boston, mark your calendar for Monday, Oct. 1, when the FirmFuture conference kicks off at the Copley Marriott. Focused on law practice management and legal technology, the conference features a great line-up of speakers and programs covering topics that range from IOLTA account management to time management to marketing and [...

Predictive Policing: Using Technology to Target Crime

Posted on September 07, 2012
Police in several major urban areas — most notably the Los Angeles Police Department — are turning to crime prediction software to aid in targeting rising crime rates. Based on algorithms used to predict earthquake aftershocks, these “predictive policing” programs forecast the highest risk times and places for crimes to occur...

New Federal Jury Instructions Aim to Deter Juror Use of Social Media

Posted on September 05, 2012
The federal judiciary has issued new jury instructions aimed at deterring jurors from using the Web and social media to research or communicate about a case. The instructions, to be delivered by the judge at the outset of a trial and again before deliberations, tell jurors not to use the Web to conduct their own [...

Rocket Matter Launches iPhone App

Posted on September 04, 2012
Rocket Matter, a cloud-based legal billing and law practice management application, today launched an iPhone app to facilitate mobile access to the application’s core functions. The app runs on all versions of the iPad, the iPhone 3GS and higher, and iPod touch running iOS 5 and above...

Virtual Lawyering Earns Lawyer a Bar Reprimand

Posted on August 30, 2012
Virtual lawyering is all the rage, but what exactly does it mean? Merriam-Webster tells us that, in this context, “virtual” means “being on or simulated on a computer or computer network.” Lawyers such as Stephanie Kimbro and Richard Granat are good examples of lawyers “being on” a computer network...

Zimmerman Defense Shutters Facebook Page

Posted on August 24, 2012
Last April, Mark O’Mara, the lawyer defending George Zimmerman against charges of second-degree murder in the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, did something unusual for a criminal defense lawyer — he launched a social media campaign for his client...

Clio Now Integrates with Google Drive

Posted on August 16, 2012
Earlier today, I published a post about the recently released ABA Legal Technology Survey’s findings on blogs and social media. A separate part of that survey looked at lawyers’ use of web-based software, more commonly referred to these days as “the cloud...

?Lexis Advance? Advances Again

Posted on July 19, 2012
Lexis today is formally announcing the next-iteration of its next-generation legal research platform, Lexis Advance. As I wrote here last December, Lexis Advance is to Lexis.com what WestlawNext was to Westlaw – a streamlined, simplified and more Google-like interface that searches universally across all libraries...

Merriam-Webster?s Law Dictionary Goes Mobile

Posted on July 16, 2012
Mobile versions of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law were released this week, compatible with either iOS or Android devices. Both include more than 10,000 legal words and phrases, along with information on cases, laws and the legal system. The iOS version can be used with either an iPhone or an iPad...

Legal Internet Trivia Challenge: Win a Product Key

Posted on July 05, 2012
Here is your chance to answer a trivia challenge and win a prize. In a post here last November, I wrote about Trend Micro’s SafeSync for Business, a Dropbox-like file-syncing application that promises a high level of security and 99.9% service availability...

Presentation on Social Media Marketing and Ethics

Posted on July 03, 2012
I gave two presentations at the Rhode Island Bar Association annual meeting June 15. The first, on cloud computing for lawyers, I posted here. Below is the second, “20 Tips for Seizing the Power of Social Media.” The first half covers marketing, the second half covers ethics...

LawZam: ?Like Speed Dating for the Legal World?

Posted on June 28, 2012
That is how co-founder Claudio Dunkelman describes his new lawyer-client matching site, LawZam. The site aims to connect consumers with attorneys by facilitating free, face-to-face consultations conducted live via videoconferencing. “LawZam is like speed dating for the legal world,” Dunkelman, a Los Angeles lawyer, says in a press release...

Podcast: Legal Ethics and Technology: Proposals of the ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission

Posted on June 21, 2012
At the American Bar Association annual meeting in August, the House of Delegates will take up the recommendations of the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20. The commission spent three years conducting an in-depth review of whether advances in technology requires changes to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct...

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